Background of Dart Specialists

Cait McMahon

Cait McMahon PhD (Cand.) is a registered psychologist and fulltime managing director of Dart Centre Australasia, with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia and activities throughout the Asia Pacific region. McMahon has been interested in the nexus of journalism and trauma since working as staff counsellor at The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia in the mid ‘80’s and 90’s. This interest resulted in postgraduate research in the area in 1993 with subsequent publications.Cait is the only Australian psychologist to be published in the area of journalism and trauma. She has a significant history of clinical private practice, organisational development consulting and employee assistance programs. Cait continues to pursue further research at Swinburne University in Melbourne into journalism and trauma, focussing on both post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress experienced by news media professionals.

Jon Stephenson

Jon Stephenson is a New Zealand journalist with extensive experience reporting conflict and trauma. In addition to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Jon has reported on the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon and on conflict in Gaza, East Timor and Zimbabwe, as well as on natural disasters such as the 2004 tsunami in Asia, the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, and the 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan Province. A graduate of the University of Auckland, Jon has received numerous awards for his journalism, including the prestigious Bayeux-Calvados Prize for War Correspondents. He was a 2008 Ochberg Fellow at the US-based Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, and was recently appointed to the Center's Australasian advisory board.